Tags:
Journalism of Courage
There are days when all of us feel like bunking office. As Delhi slowly simmers, it requires a steely resolve even for the most motivated among us to haul ourselves out of air-conditioned comfort and get to work. If you happen to be working with a young team, you’ll find a mind-bogglingly hilarious range of excuses that twentysomethings can come up with to avoid work. I suppose they could be true but I have a hard time keeping a straight face and expressing sympathy.
However, most of us have had incorrigible bosses at some stage and we’ve been forced to lie to get leave. At my previous job when I was desperate for some time off and my leave wasn’t getting sanctioned, I succumbed to killing off a grandparent as well. I might have felt the tiniest pang of guilt, but logic prevailed: he was dead anyway. My husband, a lot more God-fearing and superstitious than I am, was appalled. My other set of grandparents, very much alive even now, had a hearty chuckle. But the last laugh was eventually on me. After a sunny week by the beach in Goa, I came back to Delhi and had a nasty bout of malaria. Then I totalled my car and narrowly escaped with my life. A week later, I broke my ankle. All the while I had to put up with my husband’s infuriating smirk and murmurs about poetic justice.
Logic and common sense, indeed! I’m convinced somebody up there was trying to teach me a lesson. Now, if I want leave, I offer no excuses. I simply ask for it.
